1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of e-commerce and more particularly to catalog management in an e-commerce system.
2. Description of the Related Art
E-commerce systems have evolved to provide virtual storefronts whose operational capabilities far exceed those of the traditional, brick and mortar store. Whereas in the brick and mortar store, each of the sales, marketing, order fulfillment, inventory, and customer service functions remain the separate responsibilities of corresponding business roles, in a well-defined e-commerce system, each of the sales, marketing, order fulfillment, inventory and customer service can be integrated in a single computing system in a highly automated fashion. Consequently, a more optimal business operation can result in which data flows between different functional subsystems seamlessly to facilitate the daily conduct of business managed by the e-commerce system.
In the prototypical e-commerce system, an on-line catalog of available goods and/or services for sale can be established along with associated pricing. Customers can be provided with a store front user interface through which customers can browse the on-line catalog. When a customer desires to purchase a product or service, the customer can so indicate causing the addition of the selected product or service to an on-line shopping cart, though it is also known to bypass the shopping cart model in favor of direct purchase model.
Many retail catalog designs have evolved over time to accommodate many different retail settings. The adaptation of a given retail catalog design generally includes a physical catalog configuration in a database consistent with the specific nature of the intended retail environment. The adaptation the a given retail catalog design further generally includes a specific logical interface to the physical catalog providing underlying program code consistent with the physical catalog and supporting a user interface appropriate for the intended retail environment. Adapting a given retail catalog design from one retail environment to another, then, can be an error-prone and consuming process—particularly where the requirements of the retail environments different from one another in significant ways.
The close coupling of the logical catalog design and the physical catalog design no doubt complicates the adaptation of a retail catalog subsystem from one retail environment to another. Furthermore, the close coupling of the logical catalog design can have further undesirable consequences. In particular, even if it is not desired to adapt the retail catalog from one retail environment to another, a seemingly insignificant change to the physical catalog design can have a sweeping effect on the logical catalog design, requiring code changes to the logical catalog design. Conversely, a change to the logical catalog design can result in a required change to the underlying physical catalog—an equally undesirable consequence. Of course, the close coupling of the physical catalog to the logical catalog design cannot support adaptive and flexible technologies including the service oriented architecture (SOA) driven applications.